If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0

Side Projects

A number of years ago I was interviewing someone for a position as a senior software developer at a market leading financial institution. This was a job with a large pay packet, excellent benefits package and potential for reasonable bonuses, so we were being understandably picky. One of my [fairly standard, even now] questions was to ask what development activities he did outside of work. His response was that he spent all day working with computers and that he didn’t want anything to do with them during his free time. The interview was effectively over from that point on.

Software development, like most other technology disciplines, moves at a rapid pace. If you’re standing still you’re moving backwards and it’s frightening how fast you can become obsolete. While you can learn on the job it does require the job containing useful elements you can learn from, and the chances are what you work on day to day isn’t going to be bleeding edge.

The easiest way to reconcile this is with side projects; something worked on during your spare time that allows you to investigate new technology, new languages and new ways of doing things. Interestingly though, I generally find those developers who have side projects are not doing them due to a professional need to keep up, it’s from a personal need to learn. They’d be playing with this stuff even if they didn’t have to.

For me it’s this hunger to learn that makes a good developer. Experience helps, but you can gain experience, I’m not sure you can learn the hunger. It’s not just me who thinks this either, an increasing number of top name technology firms allow their developers to spend a certain portion of their work time on side projects. Even if the project itself end up providing no benefit to the company, the experience, lessons learned and morale boost this practice provides can only help the developer become better and more productive.

There is another side to this though. Developers can be fickle creatures and they can get bored easily. When this happens productivity crashes, and more than likely they’ll start looking for a new job. The day job is never going to be as interesting as the side projects buy its very nature – the product has to make money, and has to satisfy more criteria than simply “be fun“. By accepting that your top guys are going to have side projects, buy allowing them to find what interests them and spend a little bit of time during work time, you’ll find they keep themselves interested.

The question shouldn’t be “why is this developer spending a long lunch working on something not work related?“, the question should be “why aren’t all our developers doing this?“.